Time goes by so quickly. I vividly remember when I was 16, maybe even a little into my early 20's, being bored. Bored silly.
But not in a long time. Not in a very, very long time. Now I get panicky about not appreciating every moment enough. That panic really started once I got pregnant, and I try so so hard to savor every moment with my M. Dh says this feeling just increases as you get older, and when you start realizing that even under the best circumstances you likely have less than 20 years... scary to think about.
M is 26 months now. She talks incessantly, it's like hanging out with a baseball announcer at all times. Very cute, the running monologue of what is going on. "Daddy drop his shirt... mama scratching her head... kitty going to get a snack..." And I love that she's started to role-play with her dolls, esp in her dollhouse. They like to go potty and wash their hands. She even puts them on little stools in front of the sink so that they can reach the "water".
She's also crossed psychological threshold recently, where her understanding of time has gotten much more sophisticated. It is hard to explain, but has made it much more fun to talk with her. Real conversations happen now.
Her memory is crazy amazing. Just this evening she was sitting in the bath tub and tells me that she misses Mickey. I'm like, "Mickey? What do you mean?" We don't have a Mickey Mouse toy, we have never been to Disneyland/world, watched Mickey on TV, or any thing like that. But I had completely forgotten that we do have a Mickey Mouse nutcracker that was out during Christmas time. It was packed away with all the Christmas decorations at the end of December. She wanted to see him again. I'm supposed to be digging him out of the closet right now, but instead I'm writing this.
Work is going ok. I try so hard to focus on the good, but today I kinda lost it. I find all the changes in our administrative structure ridiculously frustrating. It just keeps getting harder and harder to spend my research funds. We have moved to a campus shared services model for administrative staff services, which means that we don't have any department staff anymore. They all got merged and down-sized and moved off of campus, as, of course, staff assistance works so much better as a call-center than in-person. Right?
This also means that everything is set up in a cookie-cutter fashion. You aren't allowed to do anything that falls outside the norm of how the admin people think things are supposed to go. But this is ok, cause professors all do the same things, right? Right?
Planning my upcoming field work has just been an absolute nightmare. I get so annoyed at how hard it is to buy things, and I tried really hard today to do things by the book so that I wouldn't have to pay for it myself and then do the paperwork to get reimbursed, as that just takes so much time and effort and drives me nuts. But when I asked what the billing address is (as it is most definitely not our departmental address, I have learned the hard way and wasted hours on...), I got in trouble for trying to organize a purchase myself. OMG. I literally wanted to beat my head against the wall. I needed to beat my head against the wall. I decided that it is a good thing that I don't keep any alcohol in my office, or I would have drunk it today and been even more obnoxious and angry with the staff person who wouldn't give me the billing address b/c I'm not supposed to interact with vendors directly, even for special custom orders... because there is no reason to need to custom order anything, right?
A lot of rambling. Sorry. My brain is all over the place. But life over here in inB land is good. Basically really, really good. I am a very lucky woman, even if my university is leaving dents in my forehead. :)
But not in a long time. Not in a very, very long time. Now I get panicky about not appreciating every moment enough. That panic really started once I got pregnant, and I try so so hard to savor every moment with my M. Dh says this feeling just increases as you get older, and when you start realizing that even under the best circumstances you likely have less than 20 years... scary to think about.
M is 26 months now. She talks incessantly, it's like hanging out with a baseball announcer at all times. Very cute, the running monologue of what is going on. "Daddy drop his shirt... mama scratching her head... kitty going to get a snack..." And I love that she's started to role-play with her dolls, esp in her dollhouse. They like to go potty and wash their hands. She even puts them on little stools in front of the sink so that they can reach the "water".
She's also crossed psychological threshold recently, where her understanding of time has gotten much more sophisticated. It is hard to explain, but has made it much more fun to talk with her. Real conversations happen now.
Her memory is crazy amazing. Just this evening she was sitting in the bath tub and tells me that she misses Mickey. I'm like, "Mickey? What do you mean?" We don't have a Mickey Mouse toy, we have never been to Disneyland/world, watched Mickey on TV, or any thing like that. But I had completely forgotten that we do have a Mickey Mouse nutcracker that was out during Christmas time. It was packed away with all the Christmas decorations at the end of December. She wanted to see him again. I'm supposed to be digging him out of the closet right now, but instead I'm writing this.
Work is going ok. I try so hard to focus on the good, but today I kinda lost it. I find all the changes in our administrative structure ridiculously frustrating. It just keeps getting harder and harder to spend my research funds. We have moved to a campus shared services model for administrative staff services, which means that we don't have any department staff anymore. They all got merged and down-sized and moved off of campus, as, of course, staff assistance works so much better as a call-center than in-person. Right?
This also means that everything is set up in a cookie-cutter fashion. You aren't allowed to do anything that falls outside the norm of how the admin people think things are supposed to go. But this is ok, cause professors all do the same things, right? Right?
Planning my upcoming field work has just been an absolute nightmare. I get so annoyed at how hard it is to buy things, and I tried really hard today to do things by the book so that I wouldn't have to pay for it myself and then do the paperwork to get reimbursed, as that just takes so much time and effort and drives me nuts. But when I asked what the billing address is (as it is most definitely not our departmental address, I have learned the hard way and wasted hours on...), I got in trouble for trying to organize a purchase myself. OMG. I literally wanted to beat my head against the wall. I needed to beat my head against the wall. I decided that it is a good thing that I don't keep any alcohol in my office, or I would have drunk it today and been even more obnoxious and angry with the staff person who wouldn't give me the billing address b/c I'm not supposed to interact with vendors directly, even for special custom orders... because there is no reason to need to custom order anything, right?
A lot of rambling. Sorry. My brain is all over the place. But life over here in inB land is good. Basically really, really good. I am a very lucky woman, even if my university is leaving dents in my forehead. :)
Gah!! The billing sounds like a total nightmare. The bright side is having the funds to spend, though, right? Something I aim for one day... ;). Oh, and having an excuse to drink is also a plus.
ReplyDeleteM sounds totally amazing lately, and I am sort of flabbergasted that she and P are the same age because back when it was like 7 weeks vs. 5 weeks (or whatever their age gap is), it seemed like a big difference!
Also-- I'd KILL to be as bored as I was in my teens. Kill. Just one afternoon of boredom, that's all I ask. It would be better for me right now than 2 weeks of spa therapy (oh, which I have no time for).